The BusBoys Culture

We live now and have been for quite some time in a culture I like to call the busboys culture. It is a culture where the principles in all fields step back and let the second, third or tenth tier employees run the show without the necessary experience or talent. Take the food, or the hospitality business as an example; a new restaurant is open, and the food is marvelous, the chef is either a chef-owner or a renowned talented cook, the place is clean, or maybe the owners seat you and take your order. Give this establishment a few months, if we are lucky, and go back to the same place, place is half clean, food is half cooked or tasteless, the renowned chef is no longer there or no longer cooks the food himself or at least supervise it, the owner, of course, lift for other projects. So who cooks? probably the bus boys, I’m using the term loosely and do not mean to hurt the feelings of the bus boys, but the meaning here is that half talented people run the show, again, I mean people who are not talented to do certain work or are not trained to do it. Though I believe in the field of cooking, you must, first and foremost, be talented to make the great tasty dishes and not necessary very educated. Like any artistic field, talents come first. I mentioned the food, maybe because I love a good meal, a tasty one. But again, look at every field, we hire the experts, consultants, contractors that set and do a job for us and then leave the same job to be done, mediocrity, by people who are not trained to do it. I worked for a company that the owner ran the show and did marketing campaigns that he did not share with any of his sales people that were suppose to get him the business. We are no longer, I’m talking now mainly small business, want to spend the time training or garnish the right talents. We have the bus boy mentality that anyone can carry on the job; it's just a matter of math not quality.

My Son...... From Daddy

My baby...

Look at him,

Keep looking,

He is alert,

..Curious,

Wondering

Observing,

Talking through the eyes,

Exploring,

Comforting

Supporting

He is my son.

Vienna, VA, 07/30/05

My Daughter....From Daddy.

My baby,


Look at her...

She is a person….

A character

A poem

A song

A potential


…..her name is my daughter


McLean, VA, 05/08/2004

The Royal Republics

The president of Yemen, Ali Abdullah Saleh, announced couple of days ago in a party gathering in Yemen that he is not going to run as a candidate for the presidency in next year elections. Amidst the shock of party activist, president Saleh continued to say that it's time for a newer generation, a youthful one, to run and rule the country. He also said that the rulers, he meant the Arabs; have to leave office before they are forced to do so. For many observers this gesture sounded like a real change in Arab politics. Well, it is, but a smart and clever maneuver on the part of President Saleh that probably will be followed by other Arab presidents. When president Saleh mentioned transferring the rein of powers to a new generation of Yemenis he was eying his Son who also happens to be the head of the republican guards and the Special Forces that basically protects the regime. President Saleh, probably, will have his party elect his son as its running candidate for the presidency, and probably if this happens, the son will win. President Saleh by this maneuver would prove to be a clever politician who while out of office will be in the office through his son. Also the president will protect his son while he, the president, is alive and lastly would ensure that his son will be elected again while he is alive. I talked briefly about this point in previous articles but thought to bring a fresh example of what I already have predicted that the Arab presidents are emulating the system of the monarchs and trying to create the royal republics where you have a republican for of government without a form a royal title or a formal inheritance system. Watch next for Mubarak of Egypt and Gaddafi of Libya.

kifaya and the Arab Grass Roots Movements

"Kifaya or Enough" is a small yet gaining momentum grass roots secular movement calling for change in Egypt. It is unique that it is the first time since a long time that a secular movement for a peaceful change is gaining momentum not only in Egypt but in many other Arab countries. Since the sixties and early seventies the calls for change have been owned to groups that called for a religious change the way they see it. The vast majority of the masses were and still are silent but Kifaya is gaining momentum. Kifaya depends on small and short yet much publicized strokes against the aging regime of President Mubarak of Egypt. They organize almost daily demonstrations with small number of people and they use poetic slogans to express their feelings, frustrations, demands and hopes. The Egyptians have been famous of expressing themselves politically by using jokes or poetic slogans. They found this method over the years safer than using direct statements calling for change. During one of Kifaya demonstrations that took place in the same time of a visit by US Secretary of State Condi Rice, demonstrators were shouting " give him a visa, give him a visa, and take him with you Condoleezza" they meant of course to take with her president Mubarak. Another poetic slogan says “wake up! You who are sleeping in Abdin-one of the presidential palaces- your rule is in the mud and dirt!" again they meant the president. The "virus" of Kifaya is spreading in the Arab world under other names, sometimes similar with the same simple idea to create grass roots movements that -they hope- eventually will change the status qua. The field in the Middle East is no longer lift to extremists, other groups and people across all sects and religions are going to the streets asking for change. They are not only asking for political change but also for economic change. Lady luck, I think, is on their side for one important reason, the times that we live in, the spread of democracy and most important thing the media, the satellite media that covers every where and sends it all over the world. The satellite news media has changed the Arab world forever. People know that even the smallest movement will be covered by somebody. The rulers, most of them so far, want to be appeared as tolerant to freedom of speech and demonstrators. They want to appear democratic.

Quality Control And World Politics

In business, we use the word QC or quality control as often as we use vending machines. Quality control and Root Cause Analysis are synonymous to modern and current business practices. The reason is to ensure that we are doing what we are supposed to do in order for us, businesses, to get the job done, and done right. I think we need to create such a mechanism in world politics and international relations. Quality control will help politicians to do a better job in understanding other cultures’ sociopolitical dimensions. In accordance to what I wrote in "Mission" many mishaps in world politics happen when we, people, politicians, etc, misunderstand a cultural dimension to a reaction or a decision from another party or country. The UN is a perfect world body that we can use as a pilot for this program. The whole world is at the UN and having a department that would filter and interpret information upon request would be a great first step. Of course I do not have all the answers as to how this QC would really help but I'm sure that if the political class in every country creates a mechanism for more intercontinental understanding to each other that this mechanism will help to reduce world conflicts. Each country should consider the rest of the world as it own customers , potential customers or prospects and accordingly should be more thorough and civilized to news and issues other wise the customer or customers would go somewhere else. In business, there is a famous statement, if we do not treat them well, someone else will" We also should apply root cause analysis to world conflicts and break down each conflict to it's smallest components to get to the root of the issue in place. This approach will not only help to prevent on going conflicts but will also help to reduce and diffuse future ones. Quality control can be applied to war zones and active conflicts. The approach would make us better conflict managers and reduce human and financial losses.

The New Role of the Armed Forces

Armed conflicts, as we know it, between countries are fazing out. The new armed conflicts now and in the foreseen future will be mostly between countries and armed groups or terrorists that want to change the status quo through armed struggle. We see it now between, almost, the whole world and Al-Qaeda militant group that ironically and loosely speaking has offices in many countries, or mountains. Before the Second World War we saw in Nazi Germany an armed militant organization seizing power, though through elections in the beginning, and turning the country into a state terrorist. I do not expect, at all, that Al Qaeda will seize power in a country and turns it to state terror organization although they were doing it in Afghanistan before the US intervention and under the Taliban regime. After World War Two, we witnessed terror groups such as the Japanese Red Army, Bader-Meinhof in Germany, and The Red Falangists in Italy who were defeated only when states saw their danger to the civilized world and the modern state system. These organizations claim a philosophy but believe in destruction as a way for change. Though in the above countries, those groups could easily have become political parties, with no terrorism of course, and pursued political agendas. However their purpose was not to be in the system but to destroy it. The examples above are for groups who did not want and do not want, in case of Al-Qaeda, to be a part of a civilized process for change, but as a hammer to destroy. Such organizations can not be handled through dialogue but through war. It happens now in Iraq and it happened in Afghanistan. We have to differentiate the above groups from other groups such as the PLO in Palestine and Argon in Israel, who used the armed struggle to free their countries. Once liberated, they turned to regular political process. Both used war to achieve independence and used what we describe now as terror in modern day language. But once independence is achieved or become achievable, they succeeded to make the transition. Other example is in South Africa, where Nelson Mandela was the head of what used to be called a terror organization. He went to jail and came out as the new president of the new South Africa and his party became the ruling party in South Africa.